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This year at I/O 2023, Google unveiled the all-new, revamped Google Home app. With a fresh design and some cool new features, the updated app brings a bit more convenience and customization to smart home controls. Maybe the best part of the update is the new Home Panel that was initially available on the Pixel Tablet. The Home Panel provides users with quick, easy access to device controls from the lock screen or Quick Settings panel. With the recent release of Google Home 3.3, the Home Panel is now rolling out for other Pixel devices, too.
Pixel phone users can now effortlessly navigate their smart home devices directly from the lock screen or Quick Settings. A simple tap on the Home icon in the bottom-left corner of the lock screen (or via the Home tile in Quick Settings) now allows Pixel owners to access the Home Panel’s quick access tile interface. From there, users can add, remove, or re-order devices in the Favorites tab, and have the most commonly-used devices only a couple of touches away at any moment.
The introduction of the Home Panel for Pixel phones (and hopefully other Android devices down the road) gives us a significant improvement in the app’s usability, providing a much-improved user experience when it comes to the Google Home app in general.
While still an exclusive to Pixel phones for now, the Home Panel’s availability is expected to expand to other Android devices later this year. 9to5 Google notes that the latest Android 14 Beta also has access to this new Home Panel, so a wider roll out should occur at some point in the future.
For those who haven’t received the Google Home v3.3 update on the Play Store, the APK can be manually sideloaded from APKMirror if you want to give this a try right now. For what it’s worth, all the devices I’ve updated the Google Home app on have been granted access to the new feature immediately. Your mileage may vary. And while I 100% think this feature should be available on Chromebooks already, I’ll save that diatribe for a future post.
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